


March

by kaelio



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: And Time Goes On, Grays and Fades, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaelio/pseuds/kaelio
Summary: Julian's appearance has changed.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 14
Kudos: 101





	March

**Author's Note:**

> Received a prompt. Short, unfluffy fill.

Among a handful of self-professed “civilized cultures”, judgements predicated on appearance are met with _disdain_ ; yes, despite how much there is to be obtained by watching. A ritualistically daft stance, those wiser might attest. Is assessment not the reward for keen observation?

And yet sometimes observation could force startling conclusions.

One really had to remark.

“Your hair, my dear—it’s gray?”

His dear Julian had hair as brown as to be _black_ , and _black_ enough it needn’t be _blackened_ to be _black enough_. A Cardassian born with a wilder color would dye it properly, but there was dear Julian—always handsome Julian—whose hair was right at the cusp so as to be kept natural, but edging, daringly, towards violation. At the very tips, in sunlight, it would glow.

Such things would not be unremarked upon, having been lost.

He looked down at his hands. The scales themselves were flecked and matte, lacking something of their natural sheen. The skin between was papery, a parchment over fingers none-so-nimble.

“I’m senile.”

Julian nodded. And how damned _solemn._

The odd bow of Garak’s mouth distorted—his discomfort more obvious than his cautious nature would prefer. The skin of his face was alien to his jaw; he felt the curve of it, how lax it had become.

“I imagine we’ve done this before,” he suggested.

“Yes, dear. Many times.” There was an effort—dear Julian—to say it evocatively. But underneath, it was flat, divorced. They were words of service, delivered serviceably.

One might imagine it protected them both.

“Then I can only surmise… I’ve asked you a particular question. That being—”

“‘Is there anything I can say that will make this less upsetting for you?’” —There the doctor recounted it beautifully.

“Mm.” Nothing of that satisfied. “And given that, I suppose the answer would be, ‘No.’”

“Actually, there is.” (Sun shining and brightening the tips of his—no, his hair was gray. Ergo, the light.)

“And what might be?”

“The answer’s in the question. It’s that that’s the first thing that occurs to you. Is to ask me. Every time.” And that broke though; a confession of that nature could not be dispassionate; he was human.

“We beat the odds, did we?” Garak prodded. “Off you went, always saying we would. Of course you did.”

“We did.”

“The Union?”

“Healthy. Happy.”

A gentle shake of a head that was old and gray and none-so-nimble. “You wouldn’t lie about this, would you?”

“No. In all this time, I never could. Never did learn how.”

(Garak wondered if he, meanwhile, had ever stopped.)

“I’m sorry,” Garak said.

(—He supposed he _had_ stopped. Could stop. Now and then.)

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

There was no way to know if that was true.

“I love you,” Julian continued. Oddly. Perfunctorily, distractedly. As if something about those words was both very familiar but lacking a comfortable beat.

“And I love you.” Said so many times it lost its strangeness. “So pardon me if I seem a little puzzled, my dear. That you seem—"

“Worried? That it’s vaguely….”

Garak could sense it. “… unethical.”

“—to kiss you.”

“Did we stop?”

“We did it less, as time went on. As we integrated. As you _re-_ integrated.” He held out a hand, palm-forward.

“Did I lose taste for it?”

“Maybe a little.”

The skin of two palms was so soft. There was nothing to protect it from the intimacy of the world.

And a Cardassian gesture could be met with a human one. That was the basis of all they had managed, reciprocity across chasms. One could meet lips, if it meant something, if it meant half so much as fingers entwined.

It had a taste that was warm and familiar, pleasant and aromatic, with the faintest sting of saliva—humans and their _salt_.

And _salt._

Garak withdrew, his fingers ghosting a thin wet trail. “My dear, you’re crying… and your hair is gray?”


End file.
